The proposed Center provides an exciting opportunity to enlarge and enrich the group of scholars studying chronic illness and to share the knowledge generated by these scholars with the larger research community and with those in practice. These goals will be accomplished, in part, through the Research Development and Dissemination Core. Specifically, the Development arm of the Core will: (1) develop the research skills of new and minority investigators; (2) in all Center Investigators help develop specialized skills in the conduct of research with vulnerable populations; (3) develop investigators' skills in the assessment of biobehavioral markers of change; (4) develop the analytic skills of investigators in the use of new statistical and cost analysis techniques; and (5) provide general research development activities. The Dissemination arm of the Core will: (1) announce and chronicle the activities of the Center; (2) facilitate investigators' sharing of their scientific advances through presentations and publications; (3) implement and evaluate a community-based training model to enhance utilization of research findings; (4) disseminate the findings of the Center's and others' research in this area to clinicians across the nation; and (5) bring together a national group of scientists studying chronic illness for a research roundtable on conceptual, methodological and empiric advances in the study of chronic illness.